


pick me up, no headlights

by emptyhalf



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Found Family, Gen, accidentally dads, if getting legally compelled to co-parent counts as 'found', parental comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27081187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptyhalf/pseuds/emptyhalf
Summary: George and Max accidentally acquire a baby. They deal with it.(now with added epilogue - this really is complete finally)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 114





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic, although it was originally published under another name. I was never totally happy with it, although it was one of my favourite things I wrote, so I came back to it today and fixed a few things and added a final chapter.
> 
> It was originally inspired by nothing more profound than [this reddit comment.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/639177114662207507/722401954894184528/image0.png) It's crack, obviously, just crack I ended up oddly emotionally invested in
> 
> (please don't be uncool enough to mention my old username, although I'm fairly sure it's easy to join the dots between the two if you know - I have an online stalker problem but I don't think they follow AO3 closely enough to be able to make the link themselves off writing style or whatev)

Getting pulled into a meeting - about sponsorship, no less - during a race weekend is hardly a new phenomenon, so George doesn’t think a lot about it, except to make sure he’s wearing proper team gear and his hair isn’t standing on end. The last few years have involved a  _ lot  _ of sponsor negotiation and he understands that fast car only go vroom if the money to pay for it exists.

It’s pretty normal for some people with contracts and briefcases to be there, obviously Claire would be there,  _ he’s  _ there, maybe there’d be some other team members, Nicky, the usual. What’s slightly throwing him off is that Christian Horner is, too. And Max Verstappen. And actually it has more of a vibe that he’s being hauled into the stewards than a sponsorship deal. 

“Err, hi.” His chair skids on the carpet, pulling it back and then creaks slightly threateningly as he sits down, the room unnervingly silent, “Am I being sold to Red Bull?”

Christian narrows his eyes at him, “Absolutely not.”

Claire looks kinder, half-reaching a hand across the table to him, “No, George - it’s just a complication with the Al Saud will.”

“The… Al Saud will?” He feels quite dumb, repeating his boss but also as though everyone else in the room seems to be a few steps ahead of him. George glances over at Max, who shrugs and goes back to, seemingly, not paying any attention because he is waving at the baby in the corner of the room.

There should probably not be a baby in the corner of the room. 

George is really hoping his jaw is not hanging open too far when he looks back at Claire. Perhaps this is a stress dream, he’s been having a lot of them since the championship fight got going.

One of the lawyers (probably lawyers, they’re wearing suits) smiles kindly at him and pushes some paper across the table. “As part of the deal offered to Williams in 2020, there was a stipulation that the team would take care of matters related to the sponsorship within the Saudia owner’s will, as a separate concern from the main executorship.”

George nods like he understands because he is  _ very  _ well media trained.

“It’s a pretty normal clause and simply gives us some rights to continue to handle business about the sponsorship with whoever the successor is.” Claire says it reassuringly, her hand still halfway across the table like she wants to reassure George. “This time just has a little extra complication.”

“ _ Little? _ ” Christian hisses it, looking distinctly pinker as though every moment in the room is raising his blood pressure.

“Yeah, a little, baby complication,” Max doesn’t even look round at them, from where he’s enchanted by the tiny hand raised out of a stroller at the other end of the table. 

“Baby?” George feels like the shocked husband from a 1940s film or something, his voice wavering.

The lawyer intervenes, “Yes, in this instance it seems that the clause referred specifically to ensuring care for a baby his royal highness had great interest in-”

“A lovechild,” intervenes Max, bluntly.

“-but who was not resident nor registered as a Saudi citizen,” the lawyer overrides, sounding annoyed. “It’s an unusual case.”

“Right.” George is getting steadily weaker and wants to slide off his chair as his brain supplies ‘ _ you probably need a cup of tea _ ’; this really does have to be a stress dream. 

“What’s particularly unusual is that the will specifies the child moves to the care of yourself and Mr Verstappen.”

Multiple things happen at once, which is that George hears himself make a weird noise, Christian huffs with anger, Claire smiles at him and he looks over to see Max holding out his finger for the tiny hand, just visible above the pushchair’s edge, to grip strongly.

“Me ...and Max.” George feels like he’s been drafted in for comedy relief.

“Yourself and Mr Verstappen, yes. He was the reigning world champion at the time of drafting, there is a stipulation you must teach the child race craft.” 

“Right,” George says again, feeling even weaker. “But we just sign something and the baby will get looked after, yeah?”

Max suddenly whips round to glare at him, “ _ By us. _ ”

George doesn’t have time to process that, staring blankly at the lawyer who unhelpfully says, “It’s your choice, Mr Russell. But it has to be a joint decision.”

“George,” Max says threateningly, “we are not giving away a baby. Anything could happen to him.”

George feels like saying, ‘we’ve only had him five minutes’ and ‘that could happen anyway, for god’s sake, we can’t look after a baby’ and ‘I’m not becoming a dad  _ with you  _ of all people’ and ‘wait a second, did you say this is a Saudi prince’s lovechild’ and ‘surely literally anyone is more qualified to look after a baby than two F1 drivers who don’t even live in the same country’ but none of those seem like the correct response so he looks, wild-eyed, to Claire instead.

“Williams will support you whatever you choose.” She shoots a look at Christian, “and so will Red Bull.”

Christian does not look as though he agrees, at all but Max talks over him, “Can we sign the adoption papers already? Because he’s hungry and I have an interview at 2.”

George makes a faint, whining sound because yeah, maybe they can’t just reject a baby. He’s not sure he can have that on his conscience  _ and  _ having to kill or be killed by Max Verstappen.

“What’s his name?” He’s gone mad. Fuck. What the hell is he going to tell his mum?  _ ‘Hello, sorry, this is technically your grandson now, his other dad is Max Verstappen.’ _

“Abdul,” the lawyer pushes the stack of papers in front of her towards him and Max, neatly separated into equal piles. “These are the papers, if you agree with Mr Verstappen.”

“Right.” George really needs some more responses but even in his most fearful, one-night-stand-induced panics he’d never imagined getting told he’d be a dad quite like this. He’s a  _ good boy,  _ he was going to get a championship and a wife and a house and things sorted first. Maybe a couple of dogs.

There’s a cry from the pushchair and Max leans over, picks the baby out -  _ their  _ baby, maybe, wrapped softly in cream fleece, little feet kicking against Max’s chest in anguish - to shush him, cradled against his shoulder. “Shh, it’s ok, we’re gonna feed you really soon.  _ Sign _ , George.”

“You don’t have to,” Christian grits out at George, like he knows he can’t stop Max but might find a way to have George assassinated if he goes along with this. Murdered by Red Bull either way, then, so it just comes down to who he’d prefer it to be by.

Max looks across with big, pleading eyes - not at all the shut-off, distant expression George is used to. “He’s just a little baby. I know it’s weird but we’ve got to take care of him.”

“Right,” George says, for the fifth time and signs the papers.

\-----

Max shoves the pushchair at him, “I have an interview, you need to feed him, I’ll be back in half an hour.”

George wants to say ‘how do I feed a baby?’ And ‘mate, we need to discuss this co-parenting thing’ and ‘where’s he going to  _ live? _ ’ But Max is giving him a look somewhere in the region of ‘death threat’ so he just weakly accepts the pushchair handle, like the downtrodden British sitcom husband he’s turned into and says “We’ll be in the Williams garage.”

“Great!” Max claps him on the shoulder, “We’ll talk about it all later.”

He tickles Abdul under his chin, making a burbling sound, before walking away with the kind of steady-legged self-assurance George wishes he could access literally any of.

“Right,” he says to Abdul, “let’s take you to the garage before daddy kills himself.”

Even the word feels deeply,  _ deeply _ unnatural. The baby’s too small to really be doing facial expressions yet but somehow still manages to wrinkle his nose at being left with the clearly less competent parent.

George doesn’t even feel competent at walking, let alone parenting. He’s not sure where to look - or what to say, if anyone asks him why he’s got a baby. Jesus, he’s got a  _ baby  _ and he’s going to have to deal with it for the next 18-30 years - this isn’t reasonable. “Oh dear Abdul,” he says into the pram, trying the concept out again, “daddy has no idea what he is doing.”

Abdul starts quietly, grouchily crying and George tries to speed up because he isn’t sure how to feed a baby in the garage but it’s going to be a lot easier than out here. 

He’s dimly aware of photographers taking notice, as he makes a rapid beeline for the midfield before Abdul really gets to wailing and is relieved to see Sophie coming out of the motorhome towards him because George is  _ really  _ not equipped to deal with anything about this situation on his own. 

“George, why do you have a baby?” She’s laughing at him, charmed, taking a photo for Instagram. Oh  _ no.  _

“I don’t know.” That  _ definitely  _ isn’t the right response, his brain whirring like a fruit machine for something better just as Abdul really takes in a lungful of air to start screaming. “It’s a long story - but I need to go feed him.”

Sophie laughs at him again, indulgent. “You’re a softie, George.” 

He’s definitely a  _ something.  _ ‘Mug’ comes to mind.

It’s a pain getting the pushchair up the ramp into hospitality, makes him wonder how Sir Frank does it, swears when he gets his foot half-jammed in the door while Abdul’s escalating cries threaten to make him have some kind of panic attack. How are you supposed to feed a baby? Aren’t you supposed to have classes about this kind of thing first, not just get handed a baby by Max Verstappen and find yourself sitting on a couch in hospitality desperately trying to comfort a crying infant with one hand and rummage in the bag underneath the pushchair for a… bottle or something with the other?

There are a  _ lot  _ of nappies and wipes in the bag, which is good because George definitely has no supplies for taking care of what seems to be a pretty tiny baby, although he hadn’t checked the date of birth while he was signing his entire life away under threat of getting stomped to death by a suddenly-paternal rival. It does make him realise he’s going to have to work that out, though and probably pretty soon.

He thanks his brother’s kids for grabbing a little towel to throw over his own shoulder, before finally finding a bottle and realising he’s got to  _ pick the baby up.  _

Abdul is red with fury or fear or whatever it is babies feel when they need something and no one is getting it for them and George’s heart breaks a little bit because it’s  _ his fault.  _ His - he supposes - baby is crying and needs him and he’s fucking useless.

“I hate you, Max,” he mumbles as he tries to scoop up the howling bundle. Except Abdul isn’t howling, as soon as George picks him up. He grouses, whiny as his tiny hands reach for George’s fingers where they’re holding the bottle and his tiny head, a scruffy wisp of black hair sticking up from the top, rests against the crook of George’s elbow. 

George tilts the bottle into his mouth and the change is immediate. Silent, happiness descends over the little human in his arms and he feels the tension in his own spine relax, perhaps, millimetres for the first time since he’d laid eyes on the child.

“So whose baby is he?” Sophie sits down next to him, poking a finger into Abdul’s onesie-covered foot and George tries not to glare at her too hard. Don’t disturb the baby, for fuck’s sake, he’s only just got this far.

“He’s uh.” George realises he should have asked Claire about this. They should have had a meeting. Surely Sophie should know. “It’s uh, complicated.”

Sophie raises her eyebrows at him and George curls his arm round Abdul a bit more, lets him cough for a second, mid-feed before tilting the bottle back. “He’s my baby. Now. I guess.”

She isn’t laughing at him anymore, when he chances a glance upwards, “Your baby?”

Abdul’s tiny foot presses up against George’s inner arm, his little fingers against George’s thumb. Fuck. This is  _ his baby.  _

“Yep. Accidentally got a baby.” He really needs to stop sounding so much like the bumbling, confused character not someone in line for his first F1 World Championship, who just happens to have recently and suddenly become a dad.

Sophie stares at him for awhile and George doesn’t look at her, knows what’s coming so just concentrates on wiping up the milk spilt down Abdul’s chin, putting down the bottle and reaching for the fleecy blanket in the pram to wrap him up. “Who’s the mum?”

George sighs, jiggling Abdul where he’s grousing against his shirt. “There isn’t a mum.”

“Oh, I’m sorry George-” Sophie looks genuinely sympathetic, like she’s imagining some personal tragedy for George rather than the comedy this all stems from, so he decides to rip the plaster now.

“His other dad is Max Verstappen.”

Sophie gasps, almost pantomime and Abdul throws up all over the Williams logo on his shirt.

\-----

“Well I don’t see why we have to make a press announcement,” Max is a fucking  _ natural,  _ it’s really annoying. George feels terrified every time he touches Abdul but Max had just arrived at Williams’ motorhome, explained he was coming in to get his baby and everyone had got out of the way. 

“Seb never makes an announcement about his kids, he didn’t even say he got married. We don’t have to tell them anything. Aw, I bet that feels better, doesn’t it little man?” Max pops the last buttons of the babygro together, ties off the nappy bag and wraps Abdul back up in the fleecy blanket. “We’re going to need to get a load of stuff.”

George somehow, just about, controls the urge to say ‘right’ for the millionth time. Small progress. “Who’s he going to live with?”

“We’ll have to share - you can stay with me and I’ll come stay with you, whatever makes sense.” George can’t comprehend the calmness Max says it with, “Plenty of parents don’t live with each other.”

“Yes, but-” George finally completely loses his temper with himself being pathetic, stops for a second and tries again. “Ok but how are we going to manage that? We can’t just go to each other’s houses all the time. We barely  _ know  _ each other, Max.”

Max laughs, rocking Abdul against his shoulder, “Plenty of people have ended up with babies without knowing each other.”

Yes, he supposes that’s true. It’s just normally you’d at least have sex first. 

“So, do you take him while I’ve got interviews and I’ll take him when you do?” Practicalities seem safer than anything else they could possibly talk about.

Max laughs again, so much more relaxed than George could be. “That’s a start - my sister can look after him during the race. You’ll need some headphones, little guy.”

Oh yes. Time extends beyond this particularly insane Thursday afternoon. “What do we do at night?”

Max shrugs, settling Abdul on his lap. “Same thing - one night in your room, one night in mine.”

Abdul starts whinily crying, at being put down and Max picks him up to rock him again, “Shhh, you are going to be so looked after. Papa and daddy are gonna take care of you.”

The second sentence is said while giving George a death glare over the baby’s head. He’d  _ better  _ fucking take good care of the baby.

\-----

The first night is bad. They don’t have the right stuff, they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know each other well enough to be sharing Max’s gigantic suite.

But by the time George falls asleep, exhausted, at 2am with Abdul lying against his chest and spilt milk and sick on the sleeve of his t-shirt, he doesn’t care if Max is next to him or not. In fact, if that means he can pass the baby off to him if he starts crying again then George considers having Max Verstappen sleeping less than a foot away from him a sudden advantage.

He doesn’t even need to do that much, in the end, Max picking up the grousing baby from him for a 5am feed that George watches, sleepily, before they all settle down again. Max has Abdul pillowed on  _ his  _ chest now and George has his hand against Max’s shoulder, the baby’s fingers round his pinkie like a comforter.

They have to take turns showering, in the morning, one of them watching the baby - who gets a gentle flannel bath, in the sink - and George might feel like death but he’s actually almost  _ proud  _ by the time they get downstairs and everyone’s still alive. 

Reception, mercifully, have the first installment of a lot of parcels they’d asked for last night so breakfast is conducted with Abdul in a baby-carry, asleep against George’s chest as though it’s  _ him  _ who’s had the exhausting 24 hours and Max fetching George eggs and bacon, so he doesn’t have to move.

They’re getting some odd looks but as sleep-deprived and trying-not-to-spill-his-cup-of-tea-on-the-baby as George is, he can’t properly care. “Who’s going to have him in Free Practice?”

Max’s smile is slightly less confident than yesterday, a night of jumbled sleep between a baby and a rival clearly having highlighted this would take more than  _ really wanting _ Abdul to be safe and cared for. But he pokes a finger into Abdul’s arm, anyway, gentle. “Who do you want to go with, little man? Pappje or daddy?”

The Dutch makes George suddenly flinch, “Have you told your family?”

“Yeh, Victoria says it’s cool, she can take him tomorrow and Sunday.” George is too tired to raise an eyebrow at the omission of any of the  _ rest  _ of Max’s relatives. “We need to make sure we’ve got the right stuff in your room, tonight.”

George nods, trying desperately to chew a mouthful of food all the way without having to be distracted rearranging the sleeping baby, having to sit awkwardly to not to let his head slump out of the carrier like it seems to be determined to. “Ok.”

He needs to tell his parents. There’s going to be photos of him with a baby in the paddock. He’s got to tell his parents somehow. 

“Can you, uh,” George digs his phone out of his pocket, somehow. “Take a photo of me and the baby?”

Max shrugs, taking the phone. “Sure.”

He takes a couple in portrait, George for some reason deciding to hold up his cup of tea in one hand and Abdul’s hand in the other, like they’re lads on tour. Then Max turns the camera sideways, switches to front lens and takes one of all three of them.

It’s not the one George sends. Not yet. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to even mentally process the fact he’s bringing up a baby - some dead, rich guy’s baby - with Max Verstappen yet let alone tell his parents. 

But there doesn’t seem to be any polite way to tell them, so he just sends the one of him and Abdul where the baby has one eye open, suspiciously looking at the lens, with “Massive news, new grandson” and turns his phone off.

They don’t have to make a bigger thing of it than it already is. It might crush one of them.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

"I can't help noticing that you have a baby with you," George glares at the journalist - 60- something, balding and grinning like it's an exclusive. "Is this a new sponsor deal?"

George stares the dude down, three hours of F1 practice, a debrief and a night with a three-month- old giving him the sort of wild eyed desperation he's confident looks murderous or at least insane. "Yes."

"Can we expect Pampers on the car in Canada, then?"

He grits his jaw. "No, it's a bad surface for a change." Much like, he's discovered, the massage bed in his driver room. "Did you want to ask about leading the session, or?"

"It's just unusual to bring a baby to a media session, no?" The guy's laughing and George pulls the baby sling closer against him, tucks the blanket tighter around Abdul. He knew this was coming, he'd decided to just do it but all that bravado was easier before it was actually happening.

"Haven't got the childcare sorted yet. We're not here to talk about-" he has to take a breath, "-my baby."

Theres a ripple of scandal, amusement mixing with shock. Why the hell any of them thought he had a baby asleep on him otherwise, George isn't sure but if this is his life now he might as well take it with whatever shreds of nerve he's got left. In a few more weeks he'll probably be much less prepared.

"Do you want to ask me about beating Verstappen?" Abdul wakes up slightly, grumbles and George wearily strokes his hair. They need to get the little guy some cute hats - he's vetoing any dumb caps.

One of the younger ones clears his throat, "Congratulations on fatherhood. Do you think it's given

you the maturity to take the title fight?" George swallows, nearly giggling except it would disturb the baby and the last 24 hours have embued him with a strong urge never to do that, ever.

"I think it'll be interesting, me and Max have been pretty equal and he’s got a better record here. But the pace was mega today - so if we can take that forward into the rest of the weekend then I don't want to say smooth sailing but we've made a good start."

He almost sounds confident saying it.

\-----

Lando stops him running from garage to motor home after forgetting his phone charger and desperately hoping cupping his hands round Abdul's ears counts as precautions when it's relatively quiet. "Max said you've got a baby?"

George looks at him, curious and interested more than judgemental or weird. "Yeah, well, so does he."

Lando chews his bottom lip for a second, considering. "What's their name?"

He wants to pause. Wants not to tell Lando. Wants to not make it real. Wants, if George is perfectly honest, for this not to be happening at all except that he's got a baby strapped to him and he has to deal with it whether he likes it or not.

"Abdul, he's like... Not. I didn't know about this."

Lando nods, solemn, then smiles. "Can I hold him?"

George nearly says no. His only connection to Abdul has been trying to protect him, not let anything happen to him that might make Max kill George because he can't pretend he loves the baby. Yet. Maybe yet. The idea makes panic reflexes go off in all kinds of directions. "Yeah, OK but I've got to feed him."

The Williams staff have clearly given up on trying to even stop George bringing random babies or drivers in, so Lando flops down on a sofa without interrogation. "Let me - can you hold him while I get-" George is halfway through trying to unwrap the carry, limbs track-clumsy and brain beginning to get frayed on the past day-and-a-bit, when someone holds a bottle out to him.

It's Sophie, looking sympathetic. "It's warm already."

George could almost have a crying jag himself, finally getting the wrap undone and crading Abdul one-handed until he can scoop him up, pass his tired-grumbling baby over to Lando's eager, gentle hands. His own feel messy, almost stupid, handing the bottle over and admitting defeat because Lando seems to know what he's doing and George feels like he has no idea.

His brain feels like it's short circuiting, watching Lando feed Abdul while George's limbs turn into exhausted, overworked lead and the overwhelming sensation he's hopelessly, horribly, hilariously over his head threatens to give him some kind of concussion. How the hell was he supposed to know this would happen? How is he supposed to deal with it?

George opts to look away, plug his phone in, deal with turning it back on and finding out what his mum's said while at least someone else is holding Abdul.

He has 26 missed calls, which is admittedly less than he'd expected.

"So you're gonna be a dad?" Lando isn't looking at him, speaking quietly while he's concentrating the job in hand.

George sighs, realises he has his head in his hands when the heel of his palm presses into his eye socket. "What else am I supposed to do?"

There's quiet, bar the baby sucking on the bottle with toothless enthusiasm.

"You're doing really well, G. It'll be ok. Max will help." Lando nudges George's knee with his, "You're gonna be good. He's ok, he'll be fine with you."

The pressure of his own hands on his skull becomes more blinding than all the other overwhelming things. "Can I have him back? I need to meet Max."

Lando pats George very gently, helping him get his rucksack and the baby bag and the sling on, helmet bag in one hand and a much-needed bottle of water in the other.

His parting shot is well-meaning but deadly in targeting. "Always thought it'd be Charles that ended up accidentally getting a kid."

George is never having sex again, clearly.

\-----

“Max, I don’t know how to look after a baby.” George says it quietly, lying face down on his own bed (as yet untouched for the weekend) while Max is re-dressing Abdul after a harrowing, wailing experience classed as “bathtime” that George thinks the UN should probably have a view on.

“Well, it’s not hard. He’s just a little guy that poops and eats - I guess it’s trickier when they start talking and walking, you know?” Max’s instant ability to bond with Abdul, the way he looks enchanted, picking the baby up to pull faces at him and make him smile, is making George feel like an even worse parent. He’s not sure he even likes babies.

He tries saying it but it just makes him sound like a terrible person. “I didn’t want a baby. I mean, not right now - maybe later but no offense, I really wasn’t thinking of having one with you.”

Max barks out a laugh that George cringes at in case Abdul starts crying but instead he lets out a high-pitched, kind of amused sound that almost reminds George of Charles. “No, I know you prefer Alex. But these things just happen.”

“ Do they?” George pushes himself up on one elbow to wave at Abdul, who grins, drooling and clearly happy to have both their attention.

Max shrugs and puts the baby down between them, so George can poke his tiny feet in the way that makes him gurgle and half-laugh, not quite old enough to do it properly. “I mean, yeah. This is happening. So they do.”

“We should get him a cot.” George lets the baby do the finger-holding thing, trying to eat George’s knuckle.

“Mmm, I think it’s ok like this - I read a thing that said it’s good to bond, for co-sleeping.”

Max’s slightly jumbled English feels like George’s brain at that moment so he doesn’t call him out on it, just shifts, stretches, realises he hasn’t done any exercise aside from free practice and groans heavily. “God, I should go to the gym.”

“Pfft, we’ll be fine - we’ll work it out better next race weekend and my sister’s coming here at 7 to take him, so you’ll be free tomorrow.” Max slumps down opposite him, copying George’s pose, with the baby between them. “It’s pretty weird but you really have to stop freaking out.”

George wishes he could. Sighing, he turns it back to the safely practical, “Do we have milk and stuff for the night?”

“Yeah, you sorted it out before bathtime.” Max pats George on the shoulder, gentle, “Mate, I think you need to eat something and sleep.”

He really does. And even though he could accuse Max of trying to gain a qualifying advantage by ordering him a massive plate of bolognese on room service, instead of the salad George weakly requests, it makes him feel a lot less like he’s falling apart. Brushing his teeth with the bathroom door open, just in case Max or the baby shouts, he looks as wrung-out as he’s ever seen himself but maybe less likely to have a breakdown than earlier.

Abdul wails twice in the night. Once, when George shifts and accidentally moves his arm away from where the baby was hugging it like a toy - easily comforted by being moved onto his chest, like the previous night, tiny hands curling against his t-shirt.

Then again, when Max suddenly startles awake and sits bolt upright, making them all jump. He’s breathing slightly heavily, sweaty, when George looks at him - they left the bedside lamp on so they could both see where the baby was and pretend not to be constantly checking he’s breathing - and looks totally disoriented for a second.

“Fuck,” Max’s voice sounds rough, hoarse. “Sorry, weird dream. Hey, little man - come here, papa can feed you.”

George chews his thumbnail down to the flesh, watching Max cradle Abdul and soothe him back down, doesn’t reach out an arm to him like the previous night when they all settle in for whatever’s left of the night’s sleep.

\-----

It feels weird, watching Victoria take Abdul away. Weird because suddenly he doesn’t have a baby, which was completely normal until 48 hours ago but now feels like he’s completely fucked up. Weird because watching someone so much younger than him act so much more competently about the situation makes George feel like the idiot he’s being. Weird because now him and Max are just standing in a hotel room together, that they shared a bed in last night and they need to go to the race track and be normal rivals.

“Right.” He’s really going to end himself if he can’t stop this. “Let’s get going, then.”

\-----

Toto blocks his path on the way into the paddock and George - sleep deprivation and stress fully ruining his weekend and the following 936 weekends after this, probably - doesn’t even stop himself cringing. Oh god.

The Mercedes boss just holds out his hand and George tries to muster some sort of wrist-strength to shake it. “Congratulations, I think you have made a very brave choice.”

Right, yes. Brave. Not ‘catastrophic’ or ‘incredibly stupid.’ Brave. No wonder Max is better at this than him.

\-----

“Rude of you to have a baby with my teammate.” Alex jogs up to be next to him, on the way to the weighbridge.

“Not really my choice, mate.” George slaps him on the arm, suddenly incredibly grateful to see Alex. “I would’ve probably gone with your sister, otherwise.”

Alex laughs, breathy, “You do have a track record for that.”

“Oh fuck off.” He does not only date people’s sisters. Twice is not a pattern. He just really liked Bianca and the break up’s still a bit sore.

“He’s a cute baby” Alex is standing right behind him and George snatches the ticket out of the machine as fast as he can - how the fuck’s he lost nearly three kilograms since FP2? And when did he last drink water?

“Hmm.” George stands out of the way, crinkling the ticket up in the pocket of his fireproofs. “No, I mean, he is - babies are just cute, aren’t they? But it’s weird.”

Alex looks at him in the way he does that highlights how long they’ve known each other and every intimate detail of George’s life and psyche and kinks and fears that Alex is as familiar with as his own. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird. I didn’t expect you to be the first dad.”

“Lando thought it would be Charles.” George has to look away, can’t quite deal with being seen with all the full-headlight visibility of his and Alex’s friendship. “Like, by accident or something.”

“Ha - I thought it’d be Lando.” That genuinely surprises George, looking back round to see Alex stepping down from the scales and raising an eyebrow. “What? He likes babies and he’s kind of an idiot, I can totally see him using a condom inside-out or something.”

George thinks back to Lando feeding Abdul yesterday, how easily he’d fallen into being cute with the baby. Him and Max get along, maybe George should let them do this, somehow.

‘Except it legally said you’ supplies his brain, like a poke with a taser to get him to try and take responsibility for this mess he very much took no part in causing.

He sighs. Maybe that’s going to be his dad thing, now, sighing and saying ‘right’ to things that are completely unreasonable.

“Congratulations on pole, anyway.” He gives Alex a one-armed shoulder-hug, trying not to think about the fact he was two tenths off and Max, unusually, another three tenths behind him after they’ve both beaten Alex all season so far.

“Thanks man,” Alex’s smile is genuine, “Are you coming to the garage to get the baby?” George supposes that yes, he probably should be.  
\-----

Night three is suspiciously fine. They’re back in Max’s room but much better prepared and they seem to both feel considerably less insane for having had seven or so relatively normal hours at work.

George sits on the sofa with Abdul propped on his lap while Max pulls faces to make him smile and then George feeds him while Max eats and takes a phonecall, Max does bathtime while George does the same.

By the time they’re all in bed, nightly routine completed without any incidents that might need investigating by the Hague and the baby in the crook of George’s arm, things actually feel slightly under control for the first time. Like they’re not just getting through it minute-by-minute and might even be able to make it, kind of, work.

“I have baby siblings,” Max says, unprompted. “So I’m more used to little kids.”

George nods, doesn’t need to say ‘ _I’m the youngest and I get let off uncle duties so frankly this is the longest I’ve ever spent around a baby_. ’

“We’re doing ok - the important thing is he’s safe.” George surprises himself by saying it but it

makes Max smile, nod, like George is finally getting with the programme.

“Do you want to come to Monaco, afterwards? Or your place?” Max is stroking a finger, incredibly gently, over Abdul’s scalp and the little shock of hair and George, for the first time, feels genuinely fond of - rather than beholden by duty to - the little, sleepy bundle in his arms.

“Maybe my place? Then it’s near both the factories, we’ve only got a couple of days before Canada. Fuck, we need to get him a flight - does he even have a passport?”

Max nods, “Your place is cool, my flat isn’t really - I’ll have to look for somewhere better for a kid. And yeah, it’s in the thing with the papers.”

Abdul yawns in his sleep and they both echo it, Max settling on his front with one hand stretched out over George’s elbow to hold the baby’s hand. Somehow, no one wakes up until a 4am sleepy feed reverses their positions, the baby sleeping on Max’s arm and George’s hand reaching out for them both.

Abdul screams like he’s being murdered the entire way through breakfast, just to make sure they don’t think they’re getting good at this or anything.

\-----

“I can’t help but notice,” oh god, it’s this guy again. “And maybe I’m old-fashioned but it seems very unusual, some might say odd, to suddenly announce you are bringing up a child with the man you’re fighting for an F1 championship with?”

“George isn’t taking baby questions today,” Sophie intervenes, firmly.

“No, it’s ok - I’ll do one. One.” He takes a breath, trying to get over firstly the fact Max had somehow got past him in turn three and managed to stay ahead the whole race, before Alex’s engine turned into a smoke machine and secondly the complicated rush of emotions he’d had when Viktoria had brought Abdul to watch them both on the podium. “It wasn’t something either of us had planned and it’s obviously a strange situation but there’s no reason you can’t be rivals on track and, uh...”

He can’t quite think of a word for it, their strange new connection to each other.

“Parents, uhm, when you’re away from the circuit. We’ll have him in karts in a couple of years, luckiest kid ever.”

Max has Abdul right now, which is fine except that George feels a bit confused to not having the baby sling on him and it keeps setting off little panicked thoughts about having lost something. “And Max is really good with him, he knows a lot more than me, so that’s helping a lot.”

The guy clears his throat, about to ask something and George narrows his eyes, “No, he is not my boyfriend, keep the homoerotic montages to yourselves.”

\-----

He hasn’t really looked at Instagram for days, now but unsurprisingly, it’s rammed with notifications. Kym Illman and Sutton Images have hundreds of photos of him and Max and Abdul and every blog or news website or TV channel or fansite is posting pictures of him looking panicked with the pram on the first day, LAT watermark over the baby.

George thinks about it for awhile, blindly scrolling and liking a few of Alex and Lando’s posts, then selects the photo Max took of them at their first breakfast together.

_Weird weekend! Congrats to this fella @maxverstappen1 on the win and becoming Abdul’s papa. Only second place for daddy here, better sort it out in Canada or he’ll pick a favourite. Cheers to the team for another amazing weekend, can’t believe we’re here after everything!_


	3. Chapter 3

Lying in bed, in the twilit glow of the bedside lamp, George looks up at Max from the baby contentedly wriggling in his sleep between them.

"Do you ever think about the fact our son's some dead businessman's lovechild?"

Max smiles at George saying 'our son' - he's trying to get better at this, to have the kind of instant, fiercely solidified idea of how they all fit together that Max seemed to.

They'd talked about it in the airport, suddenly realising they were parents with a baby to take on a plane. George had had Abdul in the sling, Max carrying their bags and catching sight of themselves in the reflective glass of the terminal George had started hysterically giggling.

They'd looked like dads. Useless, ill-equipped, exhausted and slightly podium-hungover dads. With their baby. It had been something worrying George, how this would work - they're not a couple and they're never going to be but suddenly he could see them as an insanely weird little family.

Max asked him what was so funny, having a clearly stressed moment and George had to tell him, watching Max's face fall at the idea George was surprised. Past security, they'd sat in a Costa trying to get the baby re-settled while Max irritatedly informed him of course they're dads, they have a son now.

George had tried to explain, that he didn't mean he didn't believe they had to look after Abdul now, he knows they do. But he actually thought they might be able to do it together. That they might even like it, fucked up situation and all.

Slightly placated, Max had still been wary until they were on the plane and George Instagrammed them to commemorate the baby's first flight, Max grinning as he held Abdul up to the camera.

Back in the present, Max pulls a face and strokes Abdul's hand where it's just poking out of the fancy sleeping bag papoose he's in. They've developed a three-blanket system, George and Max each having their own duvets and the baby in his sleep bag between them - it feels a bit less weird, somehow but they still get the closeness of what George has started thinking of as 'family time.'

"He's our baby, I don't care whose jizz started it." George nearly tells him off for saying that in front of the baby but he's pretty much accepted Abdul's first word is likely to be "fuck," at this point.

"Yeah." They haven't been, like, hugging but they've had to do a lot of taking care of each other since they got back to George's flat. Picking the baby up from whoever's holding him when it's obvious they need to get up or piss or just be able to eat with both hands for a minute, bringing stuff over when they've started a change without talc, or wipes, cleaning sick off each other during colicky crying fits that are mostly the baby. It's an odd sort of intimacy, totally need-based but the fact of dealing with Abdul overrides the awkwardness of them being fairly distant rivals, not even friends.

George has found out Max needs sleep, gets helplessly grouchy without it and can't make himself a glass of water much less deal with thinking but somehow can still pick Abdul up to feed and comfort him. He's found out about himself that he's a bit less dependent on it, doesn't need his routine as much as he thought he did and can cope with the disruption but he is useless at bathtime, too panicky about the baby drowning, so much so he's nearly dropped him a few times.

Max reaches his fingers over Abdul and George reaches his own back, touching fingertips over their baby's chest, feeling his tiny heartbeat as they drift off to sleep.

\-----

Max's clothes from Baku ran out before they left and though George feels like he's done at least 4 loads of washing a day, he ends up having to lend him some - they're in George's house after all.

His hoodie looks odd on Max's stockier frame, the sweatpants slightly long on him and George tries not to think about how young it makes him seem, singing something Dutch and silly-sounding to the baby while George is cooking pasta. They don't talk about the times they go to sleep touching the baby and wake up touching each other.

"Are you dating anyone?" George asks it while downing a full pint glass of water, having tried to pack 10 kilometres of running into as little time as possible so Max didn't get left alone with the baby too long.

"Nah, not for years." Max stretches, one-armed, before settling Abdul back down on him. "Winning the title makes people want to fuck you for all the wrong reasons. You?"

George shakes his head, grimaces. "Bianca got pissed off at me not wanting to move in together and she was probably right. And then it's been the season, y'know."

"Ironic," Max smirks, gesturing at himself, very much at least temporarily resident in George's flat and the baby, who's an even longer-term commitment.

"To be fair," George muses, turning round to stick the kettle on and dig "their" mugs out of the dishwasher, "she wanted me to move to Spain and didn't somehow scheme for me to adopt a baby with her."

Max snorts, then picks up the baby to lift him above his head, sprawled on the sofa and blow raspberries at him.

George pokes Max in the ankle a few minutes later, to make him sit up and make room for him as he puts two cups of tea down on the coffee table. "Give me the baby, then."

Abdul's little hands reach for George, as Max passes him over and he gurgles a genuine laugh, when George tickles his chin, Max leaning over to rub the baby's foot and rest against George's side so they can both play with him.

\-----

A transatlantic flight, less than a week into becoming parents, completely replaces bathtime as a thing George thinks there should be a special UN commission into.

By the time they land in Montreal it's incredible any of them are alive, not killed by each other or their fellow passengers and the sight of them struggling their way through immigration is a deeply unedifying one.

George struggles with getting into the taxi - he's somehow become the designated baby sling- wearer but still doesn't quite know what he's doing and he’d desperately like not to speak to Max. Or anyone. But especially Max because they both know quite how badly they just failed at stopping their baby howl for six straight hours and the shared embarrassment and incapable feelings and sadness are too much.

They’ve got to drive F1 cars the day after tomorrow, for fuck’s sake. Against each other.

And in the meantime they have a tiny child to get through the night. At least this time the teams have just booked them a family suite, which apparently has multiple beds and baby-suitable stuff but George isn’t even sure how he feels about that compared to the way they’ve been working it out. Maybe Max has a point about the co-sleeping.

Also the dim awareness he had his own room - or Max did - somewhere made it seem much less like this was actually reality and not some elaborate prank being played on them. Almost like him and Max were misbehaving into having a teenage sleepover, not in the messy beginnings of trying to work out the rest of their lives.

Abdul, at least, is now blissfully asleep against George’s chest - tired out, presumably, from his endurance-worthy performance on the flight. His tiny hands are curled up, grabbing George’s hoodie and his little feet are digging under George’s ribs, eyes closed under the maned hood of his fleecy lion onesie.

“He could do Le Mans, with that sort of stamina,” George observes. Not looking at Max, not yet but realising he needs to make some sort of peace offering.

“Whoomph, yeah.” Max sighs, which is _George’s_ dad thing, c’mon, “I’m sorry for getting snappy, I’ve never felt like - I don’t know, like I just didn’t know what to do, you know? So much? And I know you didn’t either, it wasn’t fair. Fuck, that sucked.”

George reaches out to poke him in the arm, gently, “Sometimes things just happen. I’m sorry for being a mardy git and acting like you’ve got to have all the answers. I know it’s new for both of us.”

“At least he’s sleeping now.” Max shuffles over as far as the seatbelt lets him, rubs the baby’s shoulder, “I’m sorry we couldn’t fix it, little man. Papa and daddy don’t like flights, either, really but you’re gonna have to get used to them I’m afraid.”

Max leans over to kiss Abdul's fingers, where he's reached for him and George surprises himself by kissing the baby's head himself. He's struggled much more with trying to love the baby, feel anything other than resentment for him where Max seems weirdly fine with simply diving into it head first, accepting this little being as innocent in all this and now something to pour affection on.

George has to admit that feeling sorry for himself had initially overridden any sympathy for Abdul. But seeing him sleepily forgive them, clutching for them both, when they've just failed him so utterly, for hours of not being able to comfort him, even he can't be unmoved. It might be weird but this really is their son and George might need time but he can definitely grow to love him.

"Do you think we dare trying to eat out?" George says it quietly, like it's too terrifying a concept to even think about. They've both been let out of media duties for a few races and normally this would be a great time to sample some Montreal night life but honestly the idea of sleeping has become so important to George he can't really think of anything else.

"Maybe, yeah. In the hotel?" It'd just be nice to eat at a table rather than on the bed, in furtive mouthfuls. Max checks his watch, clearly still thinking about it. "Ok, yeah. If we're there early we can probably get away with it. Fuck it, it can't be worse than the flight."

"God, no." They could definitely use that as a torture method. "Alright," George pats Max's knee, "Let's give this a go then."

\-----

George wins, which he considers fair and he's only a bit sad at the time that Max isn't on the podium with him, Alex and Lando flanking him instead. By the time he wrestles off the press Max is standing outside the Williams motor home, baby sling on and rolling his eyes. "Come on, come on, I'm not a single parent."

“Alright, alright.” Maybe he’s changed up his catch phrase, lately? “I just need to grab my shit-”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” Max is laughing, despite a faux-solemn expression.

“Fuck off, Max - I just need to grab my bag and we can go.”

Max’s laughter follows him through the door, Abdul’s gurgly little sounds of amusement at being jiggled joining in.

\-----

They somehow make it through the season. Somehow. Somehow Max snatching the title off him at the eleventh hour, two freak RESS failures taking George out of contention in Brazil and Abu Dhabi, doesn’t quite make him unable to sleep a foot-and-a-half away from him, even if George is a bit frosty for a few days.

It’s a shorter sulk than it might have been because two days after they get home to George’s new, larger flat that Max seems to have mostly just moved into, the baby talks for the first time.

He’d started babbling a bit, saying nonsense things and making a lot of what George guiltily has to acknowledge are car noises but it’s the first time he’s said something that’s distinctly a single word. Or well, a mash-up of two.

Sitting in his jiggly, rocking seat that they can strap him into in order to get 3-15 minutes of adult time, Abdul waves both hands in the air, looks directly at where Max and George are hunched over a laptop and shouts “Dappa!”

“Awww,” Max is an unbelievable softie. George has resigned himself to the fact he’s going to have to be the bad guy when it comes to anything because Max just isn’t going to ever say no to their son and they are not bringing up a monster, as well as a son of two F1 drivers. But that is cuter than hell, so he can’t help humming an agreement.

Max points to George, “daddy,” then himself, “papa,” then does it again a few times.

Abdul, definitely below the age where that’s likely to work, shouts “dappa” again and George descends into helpless giggles, no longer able to even look at the John Lewis 9-12 months dinosaur pyjamas range they were trying to pick from, an argument about stegosaurus vs diplodocus incoming.

They’re both wearing old training gear, the opportunities for exercise having become some sort of snatched window where they each have to be prepared to go for a run at any time the moment presents. They’re tired after Abdul decided Max winning the title was the perfect moment to start teething and Max is wearing one of George’s old t-shirts that’s too tight on his shoulders and comes way down over his thighs. George’s running socks have a hole on the left big toe and he can’t actually remember whether he’s had a shower today. Or yesterday. They both have scruffy, hopelessly wispy beard scruff.

Dapper they most definitely are not. But daddy and papa, for sure.

\-----

When Abdul’s two, George gets asked on a date and can’t think of a reason to say no. He’s an F1 driver, for fuck’s sake and he’s finally got Max back on the championship thing and it’s winter break but he feels awkward as hell trying to explain that.

“Daddy’s going on a date,” Max tells Abdul, whose attempts at feeding himself pasta and tomato sauce from his high chair are both voracious and completely disgusting, their baby looking like some sort of blood-drenched killer.

“Daddy bye!” The sauce-red fist waved in George’s direction doesn’t make it seem massively supportive.

“Not yet, little guy. We’ve got to do bathtime and then maybe redecorate in here before you get rid of me.” Max laughs, his massive barking one, at George's joke because the one thing they've learned in the past year is that both of them suck at DIY, as he picks a handful of pasta off the floor to flick it at the sink.

“Jesus, do you think all children are this messy or do we have a special one?” As Max sits back up, Abdul takes the opportunity to throw a piece of tomato directly into Max’s face, clearly misunderstanding the game, “No - god - no, do not throw things at papa. Eat the pasta, dude.”

George feels profoundly weird, an hour and a half later, digging out a nice shirt from the selection sponsors send them. He’s not quite sure if it’s Max’s or his, both of them having accepted at some point that they wear whatever comes to hand quickest but either way it fits well enough for a quiet drink in a fancy pub, only walking distance away from their still-new house in case he gets baby anxiety.

He’s late, which is useless of him and she’s already got herself a glass of wine by the time he sits down, flustered and suddenly feeling very fish-out-of-water. Most of his evenings, after Abdul goes to sleep, are spent in the home gym with Max and the baby monitor and although they’ve managed a reasonable number of successful outings, neither of them really loves the attention it tends to bring when they can always have people round at home.

Not for dating, though. Neither of them have been doing any of that for really quite a long time, what with the baby situation. They still sleep opposite sides of the bed, increasingly wriggly toddler between them and George hadn’t even thought about that in the unlikely scenario this goes well. He’s not taking anyone home with him any time soon.

The past two years have been much more about pretending he doesn’t know Max sneaks off for a wank during the Cbeebies bedtime story, while Abdul and George are safely occupied and Max presumably equally ignoring that George frequently takes abnormally long showers to relieve his own pressure. Max isn’t his best friend now but they’re companions, understanding each other in ways they don’t always have to talk about and even when they do argue, they’ve got the baby to look after to bring them back round.

Flo’s hair is glossy, straightened maybe and falling down her shoulders in a soft, nut-brown cascade. Reassuringly, she looks almost nothing like Lando (a fear that had only kicked in shortly after George left the house) and she’s wearing an understatedly casual outfit, floaty blouse tucked into high-waisted jeans in a way he suspects is calculated not to freak him out.

“Sorry I’m late,” he tries not to fall over, sliding into the high-seated booth table at the same time as taking his ‘nice’ coat off (rather than the duffle he wears for taking Abdul to soft play) and suddenly acutely aware he’s got a beanie on like some kind of teenage skater, not the current F1 world champion. “The baby - well, Abdul - he was eating pasta like some kind of modern art project. Do you need a drink?”

She demurs, slightly laughing at him but with a look in her eye that says if George didn’t sleep one- and-a-half feet away from Max Verstappen, he might well be in there. Clearly he still has some good qualities, even if timing and dress sense are no longer among them.

Once he’s got his own glass of wine, following a panicked mental flail at the bar where he’d forgotten what the hell he even drinks, aside from tea and the odd pilfered Red Bull when the baby’s really refusing to sleep, he tries to remember how to interact with people he might want to get off with. He really hasn’t done very much of it for a bit.

“So, uh. How are you? Is it busy for you at the minute or do you get an off-season, too?” He should have googled how her show-jumping is going. He’s a moron. Maybe he can sneak off to the loo and have a quick check.

She tells him about travelling, her season, some holiday she and Oli and Cisca went on without Lando because he’s too gross and loved up, which is news to George. He tries not to twitch too hard with the urge to check his phone in case anything’s happened - it’s fine, post-bedtime issues only take one of them checking on him, these days and Max has probably got the baby asleep in his bouncer, taking advantage of some now-rare sim rig time.

Probably. Almost definitely. There’s absolutely no reason anything would go wrong and he should try and pay attention to what Flo is saying, not stare into the middle distance inventing scenarios where Max somehow falls down the stairs and injures himself and Abdul is all alone trying to call an ambulance with his fat little hands.

“So what have you been up to, celebrating the win?” She says it flirtily, taking a sip of wine and touching her fingers to his, on the table. It’s enough to slightly get him going, where these days that means briefly thinking about anything other than the baby. He definitely used to fancy women, especially really pretty ones who are flirting with him over drinks.

Unfortunately, what comes out of his mouth in response is the truth, which is a ten minute monologue he can see her losing interest in about how excited he is that Abdul’s slightly ahead of the curve on the language development, even with the bilingual thing and ignoring the fact about a third of his vocabulary is swear words. How he’s planning to spend a couple of days during the winter shutdown working on converting the littlest room in their house into a proper play room, so Abdul has somewhere they can keep half an eye on him in but also a bit more independence because he worries they baby him a bit, travelling so much.

He can’t stop himself talking about the baby. He just about resists the urge to show her pictures of the baby, nearly all of which have Max in and that feels even weirder, until after his second glass of wine and then it’s like the dad dam has burst and he can’t put it back and he’s suddenly really sad to be drinking wine in a pub with a beautiful woman instead of at home checking on his fricking baby.

Eighteen months ago he would have done almost anything, bar adopt a kid out of the blue again, to have done this. To speak to someone other than Max fucking Verstappen in the evenings, to not constantly resent the fact he’d somehow agreed they wouldn’t over-use George’s parents for childcare because it’s their job and they have to step up to it. To not have the fucking Mr Tumble theme in his head for a few hours at a time.

But now, looking at Flo try not to look totally disinterested by this thing that’s George’s entire world, he realises there may not be much hope for him in the dating stakes. If even the time- honoured Georgie Russell method of getting one of his friends’ sisters to fall for him isn’t working then, well. He’s fucked. Or extremely not getting fucked, ever again, unless someone amazingly tolerant comes along and maybe ...Max gets some earplugs or something.

At the end of the night, they pause outside the pub. “This was lovely,” she says and it’s sincere but only because they’ve both had three glasses of wine and she clearly at least wants to shag him.

“Yeah,” he says, trying not to over-fake the enthusiasm. “We should, uhm, do it again when you’re in London.”

He tries not to be awkward for the next thirty seconds and fails spectacularly. She steps forward, face angled up at him and clearly at least looking for a goodnight kiss and he, a huge idiot, gives her a hug, leaning over to wrap his arms round her shoulders and entirely avoid their faces being near each other.

Perhaps she’ll just think he’s old-fashioned. He gets that quite a lot. Used to. When he was still in the ‘shagging people’ market.

He power-walks home, nearly ploughing into a post box while he’s checking his phone and by the time he’s through the door George is convinced that Max could have died in the five minutes since he sent ‘ see you soon . ’

Max is not dead, when he gets in. He’s sitting on the lounge floor, Abdul asleep next to him, playing Call of Duty. “Lando says you better not have fucked his sister.”

“Lando can fuck off - but no.” George struggles a bit with getting his coat off, fingers cold-numb and wine-clumsy and decides in for a penny, might as well find one of the bottles they keep an entire rack of for apparently mostly decorative purposes.

He sits down next to Max with it on the floor, pours two glasses. “I think I freaked her out by talking non-stop about our baby, also I showed her about 900 pictures of you.”

“Mmm, I am a mood-killer.” Max switches the game off, turning round to look at George as he picks his glass up. “Cheers to being sad fucks with an awesome baby.”

George laughs because they’re two Formula One champions, not just any old sad fucks but looking down at Abdul, as they clink glasses, he has to agree that they have a really, really awesome baby.


	4. Chapter 4

They’ve now had three ...well, not exactly rows but definitely fairly tense arguments about when Abdul should start karting and George doesn’t really know why it’s him that’s pushing the issue, except that he almost suspects Max doesn’t want to take him at all and if the kid hates it, that’s fine but they were told to try.

The third one is enough that George decides to leave it for a few years, it won’t especially hurt him to start in cadets rather than bambino and it’d be fair to say they have enough connections and money between them that he doesn’t have to worry about getting opportunities. Even if George half-resents that, feels like he should somehow make him earn it in some unspecified way that, frankly, doesn’t matter in this sport.

Abdul’s five when Max ambles into the kitchen, having done bedtime and finds George staring out of the window with a half-drunk glass of red wine in his hand. Sue him, he’s becoming one of those parents - at least they don’t have any inspiring fridge magnets.

“Is the bottle still open?” Ok maybe they’re both becoming those parents. He kind of thinks they might not get too far into their thirties still racing. Which is a weird thought but Max asked him the other day about siblings for Abdul and, well, it’s not like they can really bring other people in at this point.

Max puts his arms round George’s waist, head on his shoulder, when he’s got himself a glass. George is slightly surprised but this isn’t out of the realm of possibility for them so he just puts a hand over Max’s, on his stomach and asks “Was bedtime ok?”

Abdul’s started having the classic childhood fears, of them both dying or something bad happening at night and Max seems to take it particularly hard, doesn’t know what to say to reassure him. “Yeah, yeah. He was out like a light, I think the ice-skating party pooped him out, kid hates cold more than you.”

Ok, so. Not that. “Then, not saying you’re not welcome to but why are you hugging me?”

Max huffs, “We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for five years and you’re now the longest relationship I’ve ever had? No, shut up - not that. I wanted to talk about him karting.”

George tries not to look too shocked, in his own reflection against the backdrop of the dark garden like a ghostly oil painting. “Ok.”

Max doesn’t say anything so he prompts, “Let’s talk about it. I think he can try it - if he doesn’t like it now, then he can wait and if he never likes it then that’s fine too.”

“I don’t want him to get fucked up.” There’s a whole load of unspoken there that George never pushes Max on, didn’t ask why he started seeing a counsellor, never prods at it all.

“He doesn’t have to, we’ll make sure he doesn’t. Surely this is the one thing we actually know what we’re doing with. It’s got to be easier than schools, for fuck’s sake.” Catchment areas, it transpires, are a bitch.

Max laughs, squeezes George for a minute before he moves away to stand beside him, also leaning against the counter and staring out into the dark. “God, yeah. Ok. Maybe this weekend?”

“Sure.” George catches Max’s hand, where it’s turned into a fist against the countertop and holds it in his. “It’ll be ok, he’ll probably hate finding out his dads really are famous.”

\-----

It is with mixed feelings they have to accept that, firstly, Abdul loves it and secondly, he is comfortably the fastest kid in the baby karts even though it’s his first time ever in one.

“Ah, well, there goes that get-out plan.” Max wryly observes, fishing the tea flask out of George’s rucksack. “I guess this is our lives now.”

“Might do the odd bit of Formula One still,” George muses.

“Oh yeah, of course but you know, here’s where the important weekends will be.” Max hands over a steaming plastic mug. “I guess it was inevitable.”

George very, very rarely pulls this card but Max sounds amused, as well as rueful so he thinks he can get away with a bit of lightness about it. “Well, it was you that said we had to adopt him.”

\-----

It starts a bit after that, when they end up at the tracks regularly. Abdul’s six when they first hear about it from him.

He’s uncharacteristically quiet in the car on the way back, clutching his trophy and staring out the window. George is absently agitating that he must have hurt himself when Max turns round, twisting in the passenger seat and asks, “What did they say to you, little guy?”

Max is sometimes much more perceptive than George gives him credit for.

Abdul doesn’t reply for a minute, sniffles and George looks across at Max for a second, wondering if he ought to pull over, gets a tiny head shake. “It’s ok, you can say. In het nederlands als je wilt.”

Abdul shakes his head, in the rearview mirror. He has Max’s scowly expression, George’s fluffy hairstyle but with thick, dark hair that stands completely on end when he takes the balaclava off. George suddenly has an idea what it was.

“Did they say we’re not your dads?”

Max raises an eyebrow at him and Abdul bursts into horrible, confirmatory tears.

“Well, we are. We’re your dads and we love you. We’re not going to abandon you, we never have and we never will.” George feels like he’s the wrong one to be saying this - he’s a bit shit at comforting insecurities, found out he’s a bit of a distant parent whereas Max is huggy, fierce, always willing to play.

“We are.” Max almost growls it, then seems to realise that’s too aggressive. “You don’t have to look like us. Sometimes it’s better not to.”

Abdul subsides into sniffles, because he’s six but still George is amazed to discover they have kind of done a decent job. He doesn’t have huge insecurities and fears, doesn’t lack confidence, doesn’t seem arrogant about having F1 drivers for dads when he’s at the track, his or theirs.

“They only talk shit because you beat them.” George hears Max hiss in a breath at him swearing, like they don’t know Abdul knows every curse word under the sun at this point. “They want you to feel as bad as they do because they’re not as good. But we know you’re great at this or we’d, uhm, not let you do it, to be honest.”

Abdul laughs at that, snotty faced because he surely does actually know that. ‘Son of two multiple- time F1 world champions is naff at karting’ is not a headline, even if George honestly has no idea what the new, electric karts are like and may have driven directly into a tyre barrier the first time he tried one himself, startled by the acceleration being more F1 than Buckmore Park.

“Yeah, what daddy said.” Max reaches over, rubs George’s shoulder in some sort of solidarity thanks. “And you’ll be better than them at iRacing, too.”

Abdul, who has sadly inherited both of their most manipulative tendencies but that’s hardly a surprise, looks up big-eyed and says, still slightly tearful, “Pappje, can I try Call of Duty?”

“ No, ” they both say it so fast everyone ends up laughing, George sticking on the ‘music we can just about agree on’ playlist to let them all bellow along to Layla the rest of the way home.

\-----

There’s technically no reason they sleep in the same bed anymore. The justifications are getting pretty flimsy - ok, yes, sometimes Abdul comes in after a bad dream to wrestle himself in between them but mostly he’s a very independent sleeper.

Neither of them, on the other hand, are anymore. Max has to go visit his family urgently one day after a race weekend and tells George not to come, says Abdul shouldn’t be there and George doesn’t ask questions.

Except that he spends the entire, whole one night Max isn’t there waking up and grabbing for the other side of the bed. They’ve truly turned into Ernie and Bert: the parenting years.

They don’t really hug, exactly, when Max comes back suddenly, a rush of outdoors-cold air at 3am the next night. Just sleep closer than usual, George’s left arm and Max’s right tangled between them like when they used to hold the baby, their duvets a bit more overlapping than usual.

\-----

About two weeks later they end up allegedly watching a documentary about Japanese wildlife after they’ve put Abdul to bed but actually just lying on each other on the big, L-shaped couch and drinking some outrageously expensive it’s-the-off-season-who-cares whisky because they’ve tacitly agreed this is probably their penultimate year and it never seemed to bother Kimi.

“Do you think,” asks Max, “we should try and get girlfriends?”

George pauses, audibly, opening his mouth and then closing it again and taking a sip of single malt instead. This conversation comes up every few months and they’ve never really resolved it sensibly. It’s not like neither of them has had sex. Lando didn’t speak to George for about a month after a post-championship and champagne-heady moment had led to him finally not being a loser at Flo and Max has definitely come back to their hotel suite quite late a few times in the past year, immediately jumped in the shower before getting in bed with George.

“Or boyfriends, someone must have a brother you haven’t tried to date.”

George hits him, idly, with a cushion. “If I wanted a boyfriend I’d just date you, it’d save so much time. And no, I don’t know - there’s not really Tinder for single dads who are co-parents and also F1 champions, is there?”

Max hums, settles back against George, whose role has moved from baby sling-wearer to the base of any family cuddle heap despite being manifestly less broad than Max. “Nah. Just thinking maybe it’d be easier now than when he understands it enough to be weirded out.”

“Dunno if there’s any good time to find out your dad’s a massive shagger, mate.” George smooths Max’s hair down, gives him a kiss on the top of his head like he used to with Abdul when he was a baby. “Let’s not force anything, everyone already thinks we’re gay. It’ll be as beardy as Lewis and Nicole.”

Max snickers, rubs George’s knee, “Fucking Gandalf shit, man.”

\-----

George had never really considered that watching their son win his first karting championship might make him prouder than any of his own in F1. His own dad sets him off, grabbing George and Max for a congratulatory hug and then Max is crying and George is crying and Abdul is hideously embarrassed by the pair of them, shyly grinning while he holds his trophy on the top step.

\-----

“Where am I actually from?” Abdul blindsides him with it one day when he’s looking at contracts, reading glasses on so George has to take them off to refocus on the ten-year-old in front of him.

“Uhm. We don’t know.” It’s a lame response but true. They know he was born in France and who one of his biological parents was and that’s it, from the birth certificate.

“Well, why don’t I look like you?” Dark eyes are glaring at him, interrogatory and if only him and Max weren’t so fucking half-blonde, this might be simpler.

“We don’t have to look like each other. Anyway, you do, you’re pulling exactly the same face as papa when I don’t let him have the remote.” The sulking, knitted-brow expression is terrifyingly Max, to a degree George sometimes wonders where he stands out in the mix, if at all. “The guy who made you our son, when you were a baby, was from Saudi Arabia.”

Abdul wrinkles his nose, clearly not knowing where that is and George suddenly feels bad because they should make more of an effort with this. Or let him find out at his own speed, maybe but definitely give him something.

“Is that like the Netherlands?” George has to work really, really hard at not laughing because if he laughs he is the actual worst dad ever.

“Not exactly - but it’s a different country, so like where papa is from, yeah.” He pauses, trying to think of something to say, “They speak Arabic, we can try and learn if you like?”

There’s a long moment, the kid regarding him solemnly but no longer seemingly angry but George knows he’s got to do better at this. “I don’t really know much about it, dude - it’s a long way away and we’ve never been there but we can go or find people from there here, if you want.”

Abdul seems to consider it, still in the boiling pre-teen grumpiness stage he seems to have suddenly entered in the past month or so that George painfully suspects is something to do with a girl and the fact he’s a bit short for his age. “Nah, I wanna concentrate on karting.”

“Ok, well. You can ask. We’ll try a bit. Sorry, we’re not...” George tries to think of a word, “Basically we know about karting and that’s pretty much it.”

Abdul rolls his eyes like he’s acutely aware they’re both complete morons and probably spends a lot of his karting weekends explaining this in incredible detail to his awed peers, that his two F1 champion dads are fucking stupid. “Yeah, ok.”

He heads off, provocatively-chosen Ferrari shirt disappearing out of George’s field of vision before he hears “Thanks, dad.”

\-----

“He’s got to go to F4,” Max whispers it to him in the middle of the night and George is fondly irritated to realise he still wakes up any time the other man says anything.

Even so, he groans and puts his hand over his face to reply.

“Right,” some reflexes never die. “Yes, I know. Lando said Carlin are cool with it but we need to get him some testing. Also, it’s 2:46am.”

Max shoves him in the arm, bundles into him, “Just getting you ready for Le Mans.”

George bundles him back, duvet-insulated wrestling extremely low-risk now neither of them has routine calendar commitments, “If you fucking wake me up during my rest stints I will kill you, Max.”

“Schfft, no you won’t. I know you can’t sleep without me.” George hits him with a pillow and desperately hopes the creaking mattress doesn’t sound like they’re having sex because even at 14, he is not ready to have the ‘your dads are not like the other dads’ conversation with Abdul. Or anyone else, frankly.

Also he knows perfectly well their son is a gremlin who is fully awake and doing an Indycar championship they both pretend they aren’t aware of because at least it’s not drugs or whatever.

When they settle down, both on their respective sides of the bed, Max clearly hasn’t finished with the asshole energy. “Anyway, Hannah’s mum is totally into you.”

“Oh fuck off, Max. I’m not ruining his chances with her.”

Max rolls over to him again and George doesn’t resist it, their awkward whatever-it-is to each other long ago dissolved into night time cuddling now they don’t have to compete on track. Sometimes it’s nice to be family, still, even if Abdul would rather die than have either of them hug him these days, in the full throes of pubescent shame about them both.

“ _Right_. ” Max says it sarcastically, “Because I’m definitely going to shag Niko’s mum if it comes up so I don’t know why you’re being moral.”

He wrestles Max around until they’re awkwardly spooning, “Someone has to be. You’d let him watch porn without an incognito window.”

Max dissolves into giggles, grabs George to curl his arm round him more and they fall back asleep with their hands interlinked, peaceful.

Until Abdul gets crashed out, a string of howled swears extremely audible while they both, completely unfairly, laugh silently, before a much quieter. “Sorry, dads.”


	5. Chapter 5

The first time Abdul crashes, he has a fucking heart attack. Not figuratively, George literally ends up in the track-side medical centre with a cardiograph machine hooked up to him - which is ironic, since Abdul is completely fine.

Max hovers, uselessly, despite George telling him to fuck off and go and check on their son while he mentally composes a _very_ strongly worded letter to Di Grassi about the need to monitor and improve driver standards in F3, if it’s an FIA series. Dickheads with no experience - no _proper_ experience, anyway and Ind-E Lights doesn't count - shouldn’t be allowed to hit his son off the track and into the air, gravel flying-

The machine beeps, warningly and George tries to calm down again.

Max snickers at it, pats George’s hand where there’s some spare flesh not occupied with the - ironically named - shunt just in case he needs reviving or something and says, “While you’re roped up to that, I was thinking-”

“Oh _god,_ ” George isn’t absolutely sure what Max is about to bring up but anything that might be improved by medical intervention cannot be good.

“-we really should get Abdul a brother or sister. We’ll be too old otherwise, you’re already dying.” Max is laughing but there’s genuine concern in his face.

George finds himself weirdly calm about the whole thing, which might be the beta blockers kicking in. “Yeah, alright. But like, us together again?”

Max shrugs because this is sort of what’s stopped them before, the idea they could, you know, try and be normal and have any other children with _other people._ Especially now Abdul’s pretty much moved out half the year, spending more time with Jack Palmer now they’re both - annoyingly - Ferrari juniors.

“We did a pretty good job the first time,” Max reasons, “He’s made it to eighteen, I didn’t think we were going to get through the first fortnight.”

George muses on it for a few seconds before the teenager in question bursts through the door of the medical centre, “Dad, what the _fuck_? Are you ok?”

“Language-” Max is definitely the wrong parent to try pulling that one, even if George is pretty sure they’re both as guilty for Abdul’s vocabulary.

“Fuck off, pappje-” Abdul’s clearly genuinely upset, enough to absentmindedly use the old affectionate form and still in his obnoxiously scarlet race suit and boots as he bursts into tears and leans down to hug George. He can only weakly respond, hooked up to the machine still and it’s a bit of a shock, their son having taken a typically teenage turn against being publicly affectionate.

“I’m alright, just probably no Le Mans for me this year.” Abdul hugs him for a bit longer, before embarrassment makes him straighten up, still holding the hand that Max isn't. 

“Good, I can finally have a fucking go.” Max sounds gruff but over the years George has become very aware it’s the tone he uses to cover for tearing up. 

“ _Language,_ ” says Abdul, who George is starting to think they may have hugely overestimated how well they raised. Except that it's actually probably doing even worse things to his heart to see his eighteen-year-old son snuffling away tears of panic that George was going to die or something, the idea of causing him that much pain totally unbearable.

Max squeezes George's fingers and he tries to do something reassuring with his thumb on the back of Max's hand. They won't be here forever but they can definitely _try._

He has to change the subject before he starts crying, too - Abdul's too old to tell them he loves them very often, now, birthday posts on social media with embarrassing photos of them younger and dangling him between them off an F1 podium or whatever aside. And he's pretty independent, these days, they try not to be too crowding, when he's racing - their own careers hang heavily enough over him already but that doesn't mean they're not his dads, still.

“You’d hate it, you’d have to share a car with someone other than Lando,” Max snorts at the mere suggestion, “Three person team, minimum. Anyway, what happened at turn 10? Are you alright? You have to tell them if you hit your head - what was Piquet thinking?”

“Which Piquet?” Max enquires, slightly threateningly and George shrugs. There’s too many of them.

“Penny, dad, for fuck’s sake. And it wasn’t her fault, she got shoved by Evans.” George raises an eyebrow because he’s pretty sure that is _not_ what happened and also that he’s not sure what he thinks about Abdul developing a crush on a rival. 

At least it’s better than casually adopting a baby with one, he supposes.

“I’m fine, anyway - the crash-brake kicked in and whatever, the car stopped before I hit the barriers.” George tries not to grind his teeth too much at how casual he sounds, knows he had exactly the same tone after flipping a prototype on the Mulsanne straight two years ago and even _Max_ had cried, then.

The door of the medical centre opens again, Alex’s head sticking in, slightly sweaty from running from - presumably - the TV compound. “Fuck’s sake George, any excuse to take your shirt off, still.”

By the time Lando arrives, juggling two toddlers, the staff kick the whole lot of them out, on the basis if George dies it’s more likely to be from tripping over one of the twins than anything that can be resolved with a medical intervention.

\-----

“It’s a bit weird,” Max says, conversationally, “picking a kid. Like what, should I be looking at Amazon reviews or whatever? How are you supposed to decide, like is it ok to have to pick the colour? That’s fucking weird.”

“I don’t think you get to pick the colour,” George plucks the iPad out of Max’s hands, scrolls further down the adoption information page. If they did, would they match Abdul or them? It _is_ a weird thought.

“Can’t they just give us one? Or we could - is it, like, Cambodia people get them from?” It really had been easier the first time, just getting assigned a baby.

“That feels a bit like people trafficking, I don’t think we want to do that.” Max hums, agreeing and George - tucked into their bed as part of his continued convalescence, after the incident at Stepanakaert street circuit, decides to bring up the obvious. “We could get a surrogate.”

Max looks thoughtful, like he’s considered this before, too. “I don’t know - it’s like, they’d have to be _one_ of our kid, you know, not both?”

It’s the same thing that’s stopped George really feeling good about it, as an option. “I think gay couples - they like, you know, mix the jizz so you don’t know.”

That brings out a very distinctive frown, the one Abdul has totally inherited off Max, “Gross - I really hope that’s not what Lando and - y’know. Eww. Anyway, you _know_ , though, don’t you. It’s not like we look alike.”

“Ok, well. Picking a kid it is.” George carries on scrolling, “It says here violent offenders are excluded, you better hope everyone’s forgotten about the thing with Esteban.”

Max goes to punch him, then seems to think better of even play-fighting, in George’s state and half-cuddles into his side instead, head on George’s shoulder so he can read the iPad too. “Just tell them to pick randomly - no karting for this one, though, I can’t spend another ten years freezing my balls off at Shenington.”

\-----

They get given a little girl, in the end. She's small - older than Abdul, when they got him but somehow even tinier - and George panics about her constantly for the first 48 hours, until Max tells him to "stop acting like you're 24 again" and do something useful, like make him a cup of tea.

She has shiny, thick, brown hair that George is slightly jealous of, his forties not proving especially kind to his and big, brown eyes that watch them constantly beneath fairly impressive eyebrows, for a less-than-one-year old. It wasn't deliberate - they'd been very specific that they'd take whatever baby they got given - but she looks quite a lot like Abdul and George nearly has to take another trip to the medical centre when his son lights up, smiling down at her.

Like before, it's a case of managing the pooping and eating, at her age but George finds himself able to look forward to when she starts talking and walking, this time, wants to find out more about her and see if she grows into as cool a person as their son.

George has to go and cry in the kitchen for a bit, accepting that Sophie's diagnosis years ago is completely right and he _is_ a total softie, when he catches Max watching an old Monaco Grand Prix from fuck-knows-when, with her propped on his lap, holding her little arms out and making driving motions like she's steering the track for the onboards, the baby gurgling deliriously at Max's impression of a V12.

\-----

Max is chewing his nails off, watching the final laps and George probably would be, too, if he wasn’t preoccupied with feeding a baby again for the first time in eighteen years. Turns out it’s a lot easier if you’re not trying to juggle winning F1 races as well as a bottle and a sling he was slightly surprised still fits his shoulders.

“ _Fuuuuuck,_ come _on._ ” They’re both deeply invested in Abdul’s career, obviously but try not to let that turn into any pressure on him when he’s around. The title’s come down to him and Jack, both at Prema and it might have already gone Abdul’s way were it not for regen totally cutting out for him in race one around the Jeddah finale. George isn't sure Abdul really cares, more invested in how much attention he gets at Zandvoort or Donington but there's a tiny bit of transferred national pride they're both holding out for him, taking a sort-of-home win.

He's good, easily good enough that he'll be in F1 or Formula E within the next two years and George is almost insanely proud of him. Every Max-style aggressive overtake or when Abdul finds an impossible half-second over the rest of the field in qualifying and George fondly likes to think that's him in the mix are special moments but it's more that Abdul's grown into his own young man, with a driving style that's as distinctive as either of theirs but not a copy. It's like his dreadful music taste - there's bits of Max's penchant for techno and George's indie tendencies in there but there's no way they can be held responsible for the gregorian house, that's entirely Abdul's taste developing. If you can call it that.

Fortunately, he's as good on track as he is bad as the DJ at a family barbecue and although the British F4 and F3 seasons left him with second-place, George knows he _should_ get this one. It's where it starts really counting, now and even if Max is adamant your first championship in cars might as well be F1, George has his own views about a pristine junior series run hurting no one, if Abdul's determined to get to Maranello.

George is pretty sure Ferrari will move him up to F2 next year either way but a title is important and for dad-pride reasons, being the first of their peer group to get a champion son in single seaters would be very cool. The mini-Leclercs are still in karting and Lando and other-Max seem oddly adamant the twins aren’t getting involved in anything with four wheels. 

“God, this is not good for me.” Max taps his own chest, “Can’t end up with both of us having a heart attack just after the new baby.”

They're not young anymore - still relatively in shape, bodies softened by the ability to eat carbs but it's not like either of them gave up the gym entirely and Max's thigh is a comfortingly muscular weight, where it's jiggling against George's. Max's hair is more-than-mostly grey now, making it a little spikier and George has taken to wearing a beanie at almost any time he isn't in bed and trying not to think about it. He's tall enough hardly anyone can see the top of his head, anyway. 

They're also not _old_ \- having got Abdul so young, it's more surprising they have a teenage son than a baby daughter and George feels impossibly fond of the way Max is wrapping the cuffs of his hoodie over his hands as a self-comfort, hides the smile and blush about how much he can't imagine life without Max and their children, now, in coaxing Jamie to a milky burp.

“He needs to sort the line out into turn seven or she’ll have him.” Something about every time Piquet is within a thousand-metre radius of Abdul makes George extremely nervous. Possibly moreso off-track than on it.

“Nah, she won’t.” Max sounds confident, even taking his eyes off the screen to lean over and rub Jamie’s tiny foot, through her bright blue onesie. “Her tyres are completely gone, I don’t even know what I’m stressing about - I don’t think I worried this much when I was trying to beat _you._ ”

“It was different then, _I’m_ still stressed about hydrogen, I don’t care if they’ve got virtual braking or whatever, it _explodes._ ” _And_ a big, hot battery. George isn’t against progress but that just seems dangerous.

“We used to drive round with stuff that catches fire-” oh, yes. “-I’m pretty sure it’s safer now. Oh - oh, _come on_!”

George completely disturbs the baby getting up to shout at the screen when Vettel comes out of nowhere and is suddenly duelling with Abdul for the final three turns, prompting no small amount of paternal pride at how well he defends, even carrying front wing damage. Abdul crosses the line ahead and Max and George have a quiet cry on each other, while the baby has a substantially louder one about losing their attention for five minutes.

\-----

“Home!” Abdul shouts it because he’s been an only child way too long and George rolls his eyes at him, pointing at Jamie where she’s proving that, possibly, it really is a trait of _their_ children to not eat pasta so much as use it for some sort of dramatic creative process. “Oh, sorry.”

Jamie's not any easier than Abdul was, except that they're much more prepared to accept they're parents now. Once they'd got over Chadwick asking them if they'd picked the name for her (they didn't pick it at all, apparently the first female F1 champion's naming influence had a long reach, even seven years on) and tried desperately to dissuade well-meaning relatives from buying her pink dresses and dolls, given she only truly loves trains, it had been pretty much the same except that there was better baby monitor technology.

Max is still the emotionally in-tune one, George is still neurotically worried if he can't see the baby for longer than 30 seconds, changing nappies at 3am still sucks and it was still a process of learning to love her, for George at least, even if this time he was choosing to do it. At eighteen months old, she's just developing a personality that's a rainbow-pooping combination of bullish determination and the desire to eat crayons. She loves her brother possibly more than either of them, since he only ever does fun things with her and George has soppy feelings about how proud Abdul is of her, even if he does keep having to ask him not to post _everything_ about her to the internet.

She's grinning, now that he's walked in, "Abbul hello!"

“How was the flight?” George knows bouncing between F2 testing and simulator is tricky, especially when you’re going between Sussex and Maranello. Abdul looks tired, beyond standard teenage sleeping-in tendencies; he’s a little bit shorter than either of them, now, which doesn’t hurt for a racing driver and his experimentation with a goatee is going better than Max or George could probably manage still, although not as successfully as George suspects he thinks it is.

“Eh, it was Easyjet - I still have kneecaps so I guess that’s good.” Abdul approaches the high chair, which is a rookie error, “Who’s the tiniest, messiest baby?”

“She’ll throw it at you, don’t get too close.” George takes some satisfaction in hearing Abdul make an ‘oof’ sound, like he’d just found that out anyway, while he’s bending down to empty the dishwasher. “You were just as bad.”

“Really?” Abdul sounds suitably appalled, given the tomato-covered toddler in front of him and no small amount of cynical.

“Yeah,” Max has appeared, looking a little rumpled after an emergency daytime nap. Turns out he needs no less sleep at 44 than he did at 25 and they’re not really much better at getting the baby down, second time around. “It was disgusting. Has she eaten _any_ of it?”

“Probably. I think it’s an outlet for self-expression,” George isn’t quite expecting Max to hug him, arms round George’s waist from behind but Abdul’s still quite resistant to the idea, at nineteen and he does get that they’re having a _moment,_ in family milestone terms. 

Abdul blushes, in the way watching your parents be affectionate with each other when you’re raging with hormones still tends to make you and then says, very fast, “CanIbringmygirlfriendtothedinner?”

Max makes a crowing noise, “ _Girlfriend_? Ha, I told you.”

George is going to have to do all the nappies for a week, dammit. He’d been really hoping Abdul was just getting incredibly into the new GTA, like in 2037 when he’d disappeared into the playstation for a month and that was why they hadn’t heard much from him for a few weeks.

“Who is she?” George wills the universe for it not to be Piquet but knows, deeply, in his sorry heart, that it is. 

“Uhm,” Abdul swallows, awkwardly embarrassed, “another driver.” Fuck’s sake.

He’d mostly managed to shed the habit but maybe it’s having a small child again or the first one being home - either way, George indulges himself to a heavy sigh and a “Right.”

Max squeezes him, gently. “Don’t be mean - yes, you can bring Penny.”

“Benny.” Says Jamie, so solemnly - for a small, bright red child - that they all descend into howling laughter.

\-----

“I can’t believe our son’s shagging Dany’s daughter,” Max whispers to him, in bed, over where Jamie’s bundled up between them. 

“God - we don’t, they might not be shagging, don’t say that.” They better not be shagging - firstly, George still hasn’t managed to get any semblance of a sex life back and it’s only just sunk in that he’s signed away at least another five years of that, probably and secondly, he refuses to imagine their son would shag a Piquet, discovering a deep-set Brazilian rivalry George hadn’t realised he was harbouring.

“You’re just mad because Flo got married - yes you are, I know you check Facebook still - and you have to admit that’s funny as _fuck._ ” They really need to stop swearing in front of the baby, they’d both agreed to try and do a better job this time. 

It is _quite_ funny, though. And he’s a bit proud of Abdul for getting over an extremely awkward, long-haired and nerdy mid-teens phase to realise he looks a lot better with it short and get a girlfriend; clearly there are things an F3 title does wonders for, other than your career prospects.

“Can’t believe we’re still stuck with each other.” Max pouts, like that’s actually slightly hurt him and George reaches over, rubs his shoulder, “You know what I mean. Wasn’t quite what I had planned, when I was his age.”

Max stretches, yawns, pats George’s hand and then strokes Jamie’s hair out of her chubby, sleep-grumbling face. “Worked out alright, really. I love you, little lion.”

“Aw, it’s so nice you have a pet name for me, after all this time.” Max giggles so hard they wake the baby up and George isn’t even annoyed at him, bundling Jamie onto his own chest and Max into his side. It’s not as though most families are normal, anyway.

  
-fin (for real,this time) -


	6. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George's press clippings, collected in an office drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok I lied but this really is it, now

**Autosport Plus: How adopting a baby helped George Russell’s title bid at the Canadian Grand Prix**

F1 drivers becoming fathers is nothing new, with three dads already on the grid but perhaps it’s a surprise for George Russell - at 24 and highly focussed on his career...

**Correction: George Russell adoption story**

Following contact from representatives of Max Verstappen and the driver himself, Autosport would like to offer our sincere apologies regarding a misunderstanding about George Russell’s adoption of a baby during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

We now understand that both George Russell and Max Verstappen have adopted the child and intend to raise him together, while fighting for the 2022 Formula One world championship. 

It was left unconfirmed whether the child would live with Russell, in west London or Verstappen, in Monte Carlo.

**Further correction: Russell/Verstappen adoption**

It has been confirmed to Autosport, after additional contact from Max Verstappen, that the child adopted between himself and George Russell will live with both drivers, wherever they may eventually choose to reside, as part of their agreement on co-parenting. 

  
  


**Verstappen wins second F1 world title as 2022 champion**

(racefans.net)

Max Verstappen has secured the 2022 Formula One world drivers’ championship, his second title after narrowly beating Lewis Hamilton last year.

The 25-year-old Red Bull driver narrowly beat George Russell to the title, following multiple RESS failures for the Williams driver in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. An impressively close season between the two saw Verstappen take seven wins and Russell five, with neither Verstappen’s teammate Alex Albon nor McLaren driver Lando Norris able to mount a realistic title attempt, despite three wins apiece.

Verstappen’s season highlight might well be a dominant showing in Baku, taking his first win this year and setting off a reversal of Russell’s early dominance. In somewhat unusual circumstances, it was his first win as a father - the two rivals having become co-parents during the Azerbaijan weekend.

Driving the now-Mugen-powered Red Bull this weekend had been, Verstappen said, “like a dream,” after early reliability issues, while Russell compared his own Mercedes power unit failures to “a total nightmare.”

  
  
  


**Lifeandstyle: “It’s easier than driving an F1 car” - George Russell**

(The Guardian)

We get asked a lot about the baby. It’s probably the same for most new parents, there’s a novelty to suddenly having a whole new human being around - Max’s sister had some of the same attention and it’s just as well I became an uncle before any of this really kicked off. 

What’s different, maybe, is that we’ve got no safe option, to leave him at home with his mum or whatever rather than expose him to the noise and chaos of an F1 weekend. Aside from learning some interesting vocabulary from our mechanics, he’s very much been in the media spotlight from the second we signed the adoption papers and the curiosity hasn’t really died down since last year.

So, before we pack up the nappy bags and try to check we’ve got the right size of pyjamas for him, ahead of Barcelona testing this year, Max and I thought we’d write a bit more about how we’re dealing with becoming Abdul’s dads, just to save a few questions when we get there. 

We’re athletes and we’re young - I thought the worst thing I’d have to worry about, last year, was Max beating me to the title. He says I shouldn’t have even worried about that, since it was guaranteed but that’s one of the many things we have to agree to disagree about, now.

The other things we argue about feel a bit more important now. Even if it’s what colour pram to get, we have to make a lot of joint decisions, which isn’t something we’d been very used to, while we were just on-track rivals. But after a year of having to pass a baby between us, I can say it’s a lot easier than the back-and-forth of a Formula One world title and thankfully, he’s not something only one of us can win.

Changing nappies is a lot easier than driving an F1 car and although it’s taken quite a lot of getting used to, we get on with each other much better as parents than we do on track. Max and I aren’t in a relationship (despite the rumours) but we live together with our son and we’ve managed things pretty well so far.

It was a bit weird trying to work things out at first and it took me a bit of time to get used to being a dad, which is probably how most guys feel about it. I didn’t really know what I was doing at first, I’d never even fed a baby before and the first time I did it was a total panicky mess. But now it’s as normal as driving - you get the muscle memory the same, whether it’s heating up a bottle when you’re half asleep or going flat through Eau Rouge.

We’ve had a bit of teasing off our mates but mostly work have been really supportive and my mum and dad are more thrilled than I could’ve expected. Max hasn’t had such an easy time, from his family, which is a bit sad but if anything it’s made us closer, as dads. It feels mad to think we didn’t really spend any time together twelve months ago, now. 

If you’d told me this time last year that I’d have moved in with Max and spend most of my time thinking about a baby, I would’ve thought you were joking but these days I’d much rather be at home with him and our son than out in London or partying. I’ve caught myself thinking about whether we’ve got enough baby food for the night while I’ve been standing on the podium and it was such a special moment, when we got to bring him up there with us - even if he was still a bit too young to enjoy the champagne!

  
  


**Russell wins 2023 F1 world championship**

(the-race.com)

George Russell has won the 2023 Formula One world drivers’ championship, becoming the eleventh British F1 champion.

Russell, competing in his fifth year at a resurgent Williams, battled fellow 2019 rookies Alex Albon and Lando Norris for the title, while the man he lives and shares a son with, Max Verstappen, was taken out of contention relatively early on by Mugen’s continued reliability issues. 

Williams teammate Jamie Chadwick was able to offer strong support to Russell across the season, relinquishing her second potential win during a 1-2 finish at Portimao, under team orders, to strengthen Russell’s title fight. 

Russell’s year has been characterised by strong qualifying, taking eleven pole positions. Williams’ partnership with Cosworth, supplying their engines as of this season, seems to have been a particularly successful part of the teams’ recovery plan and Russell, in particular, was able to find a pace on Saturdays that other drivers struggled to beat. 

Of his eleven starts at the front of the grid, eight were taken by more than half a second and the pace was particularly notable in Windhoek and Bahrain, while other cars struggled with heat and dust affecting batteries and turbochargers. 

Reflecting on his win, Russell said it was “a dream come true, honestly - oh god, that’s what Max said last year, isn’t it? It is, though.”

He dedicated the title to the pair’s young son, who accompanied Russell to celebrate in post-race media sessions.

  
  


**Verstappen: Fatherhood has put on-track fights into perspective**

(SkySports.com)

In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports F1 ahead of the 2024 season, two-time champion Max Verstappen says that fatherhood has tempered his reactions to incidents on track and helped him cope with disappointment, following a season dogged with twelve retirements due to mechanical failures.

“You know, you get out of the car and you’re really mad, of course - no one likes retiring with the engine on fire, come on but when you get back to the garage and there’s a little guy waiting for you it’s not so bad.” Verstappen told Sky Sports pundit and former F1 champion Jenson Button, during the interview from the London home Verstappen shares with 2023 title holder George Russell and their son.

“I think it was the same for George last year, you can’t stay angry about bull**** for long when you’ve got a kid. Well, I can’t, anyway - he’s an awesome little guy and he’s so young still, he needs us all the time.” Verstappen, who has distanced himself from his own father since adopting a son, said that he didn’t find any aspect of parenthood particularly difficult. “It’s just cool waking up every day and getting to find out what he’s going to get to do for the first time - walking, talking, whatever,”

Verstappen moves to McLaren this season, when the Woking-based team officially becomes Mercedes’ Formula One entry following the factory team’s withdrawal. On adjusting to life after Red Bull, for whom Verstappen drove the past seven consecutive seasons, he said that parenthood had also given him valuable lessons.

“If I can get used to changing nappies I’m pretty sure I can remember to go to Woking, not Milton Keynes.”

Watch the full interview during the warm-up to the 2024 PayPal Irish Grand Prix this Sunday, exclusive to Sky Sports F1.

  
  


**Verstappen and Russell to retire at end of 2029 season**

(Motorsport.com)

Max Verstappen and George Russell have issued a joint statement, with both McLaren-Mercedes and Williams, saying that they intend to retire from Formula One at the end of the current season. The two drivers had been expected to enter contract negotiations at their respective teams, although neither has been in the title fight this year both are still consistently delivering good results.

Although not a couple, the two adopted a son together during the 2022 season and have been living together ever since, along with the five world drivers’ championship trophies they have amassed between them.

Verstappen won the 2021 and 2022 titles for Red Bull but despite initial success, his relationship to the team broke down as his then-Mugen powered car did, regularly, from 2023 onwards, prompting a 2024 move to McLaren-Mercedes and another title there. Russell won in both 2023 and 2028, when he and teammate Jamie Chadwick also sealed the constructors’ title for Williams for the first time since 1997.

In the brief statement, the two drivers thanked their teams and teammates and said they had no immediate plans for the future:

“ _ It hasn’t been an easy decision to come to but we both agree it’s time for the F1 chapter of our lives to end - with massive thanks to the teams who’ve given us chances over the years, especially to Williams and McLaren and to Jamie and Lando for their support these past few years. _

_ Neither of us knows what the future holds just yet but we’re excited to look ahead and to finish this season as well as the teams’ deserve. _

_ Cheers, F1 and thanks for all the champagne!” _

  
  


**“F*** knows” - Verstappen on post-F1 plans**

(WTF1)

Max Verstappen has said he has no specific plans for life after he retires from racing in Formula One at the end of this season, although he expects to spend more time at karting tracks.

Max became a dad in 2022 and said he was aiming to catch up on some sleep:

“What am I thinking about doing? Having a ****ing nap, it’s the only thing I’ve thought about for the past seven years.”

He said that becoming a karting dad had taken the main focus of his racing further away from the glamour of a Grand Prix. “I mean, realistically - well, f*** knows, obviously but - I’m probably just going to be getting rained on at Buckmore but that’s what you have to do, isn’t it? It’s not like my mum didn’t do the same for me.”

Max is also looking forward to losing the restrictions of an F1 driver’s diet, “Actually you know what? I’m going to order a pizza, that’s what I’m going to do after we get back from Abu Dhabi.”

  
  


**Verstappen-Russell victorious in British E-KZ2 at Fulbeck**

(Motorsport UK)

Last weekend Abdul Verstappen-Russell sealed the British E-KZ2 title, his first championship win in karts, during the season’s final round at Fulbeck.

The British-Dutch driver has been hugely popular since arriving in karts, due to his Formula One heritage (he is the son of former F1 drivers Max Verstappen and George Russell) but it’s his on-track prowess that has truly turned heads.

Verstappen-Russell took pole and all three race victories, in a very dominant end to his first season in the class. He is now looking towards a move to European competition for the summer series and aims to take a CIK-FIA title in international E-KZ2, building on his home success.

Verstappen-Russell’s father, two-time F1 world champion George Russell, said that he was “ridiculously, actually ludicrously proud” and “properly delighted” at the title win.

**Russell calls F3 driver standards “bloody ridiculous” after son’s shunt**

(Autosport)

Former F1 world champion George Russell has called out driver standards in FIA F3, saying that there should be a clearer minimum level of experience before a racer is allowed to move up to the hydrogen-hybrid category.

Russell suffered a cardiac arrest and was forced to go to the Stepanakaert medical centre, following the collision between Penelope Piquet and Abdul Verstappen-Russell, who retired from the race after ending up in the gravel trap at turn 10.

Interviewed afterwards, Russell - accompanied by Max Verstappen, who declined a comment - said “Di Grassi needs to make this a priority, FIA series should have serious minimum driver standards and especially the hydrogen-hybrid championships where drivers are managing such complex machinery.

“There should be a minimum number of hours experience driving a fuel cell hybrid car, you can’t just let people who’ve had a few years using a low-horsepower Ind-E Lights powertrain loose on track in these things, someone will end up seriously hurt. It's bloody ridiculous letting someone with mostly oval experience loose at a street circuit like this."

Verstappen-Russell was uninjured in the incident, as for the most part was his car, thanks to the FIA’s new virtual crash brake kicking in, stopping the vehicle before it met with the barriers.

  
  


**Verstappen says he “can’t believe we’re ****ing doing this again” as daughter debuts in karts**

(Crash.net)

Former Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, father of current F1 world champion Abdul Verstappen-Russell, said that he was “proud” to see daughter Jamie take on her first karting race but also “couldn’t believe” that he and co-parent and fellow former F1 world champion George Russell had allowed their second child to get into motorsport as well.

Jamie Verstappen-Russell placed sixth and tenth during her debut Bamb-E races, held at Rowrah last weekend. Verstappen-Russell, whose sixth birthday was last week, has reportedly been keen to get on track from a very young age, possibly to her father’s dismay.

Asked for a quote afterwards, Verstappen - who turns 50 next month - said that he was surprised to find himself back at Rowrah, eighteen years after his elder child made his debut there. 

“You can ask George for a nice quote,” he said. “I still can’t believe we’re ****ing doing this again. It’s going to be ten years of standing here, at least - but you can’t argue with them, when they want to do it, can you? What am I going to say, that she can’t be as good as her brother? She ****ing can, look at that overtaking.”

Verstappen went on to clarify that he was ‘extremely proud’ of his daughter, despite the parental burden of a karting career, “Honestly though, I'm extremely proud of her. It would've been heartbreaking if she hadn’t wanted to be a driver - it’s not like we know how to do anything else.”

  
  


**Autosport Plus: How a sponsor’s contract clause was the making of a world champion**

Abdul Verstappen-Russell is Ferrari’s first world champion since 2007, after a painful forty year gap between titles for the prancing ponies. Maranello should be thanking Williams, however, for an old contract clause during the team’s 2021 refinancing that saw then-drivers George Russell and Max Verstapp…

**Correction: Verstappen-Russell adoption circumstances**

We published a feature earlier this week on an unusual sponsor clause that prompted Formula One drivers George Russell and Max Verstappen to adopt their son, 2047 world drivers’ champion Abdul Verstappen-Russell. After contact from the Verstappen-Russell family, they have clarified that although the clause created the opportunity for Abdul to join their family, both Russell and Verstappen very much chose to become parents. We are very sorry for any confusion and intended no perceived insult to Verstappen, Russell or Verstappen-Russell.

  
  


**British racing vintage: George Russell on hitting 50**

(Sunday Times magazine)

We joined the two-time Formula One world champion at his home in Hastings, to discuss classic cars, fatherhood and what he’s learned in five decades.

**I’m turning into a bloke with a shed**

Except it’s not my shed, really, it’s my daughter’s and it’s full of her karting stuff. We were still racing ourselves when our son started, so we missed out on it a bit - not the races but we paid people to do his karts and things, I hadn’t really got my head round the idea of electric by then. But this time it’s been really fun helping her, she has us absolutely whipped as pit crew.

**It’s stereotypical but I do love classic cars**

We’re both awful for buying things off eBay and imagining we’ll get them going again. I think we forget we had garages full of engineers when we were driving race cars. My last daft purchase was a birthday present to myself - an original Nissan Leaf that needs a total refit. I had some mad idea I’d be able to put the karting experience to good use but so far the only thing I’ve done is put a boy racer spoiler on the back and accidentally knocked one of the wing mirrors off rolling it into the garage.

**I’ve discovered a real passion for the sea**

We moved down here when Abdul was a teenager, before we had Jamie and I always thought I was humouring Max [Verstappen, with whom Russell has lived for for 26 years] because it’s a bit riviera but actually I really love going down to the beach. Our daughter used to pick the most _horrific_ things out of the rockpools, properly terrifying crabs and things and I ended up learning about all kinds of shells and stuff. I guess we’re turning into proper old men but Max and I like a little walk and to collect some driftwood for the fireplace - it smells gorgeous when it burns.

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**I’m more proud of my son’s achievements than my own**

__

It feels like a very long time since I won an F1 title - which it is, twenty years - and it barely seems real anymore. The sport’s changed so much but to see Abdul work so hard at Ferrari (who he always wanted to drive for since he was a kid, I think just to annoy me and Max at first but then he started meaning it) and finally get the reward, last year, was amazing. It’s mad to think he’s older than we were when we got him, now and we’re so, so proud of him. He’s getting married this summer, to extend another racing line and I’m trying not to get too broody about grandkids yet but we’ll be so happy if they happen.

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**I’ve spent more than half my life with the guy I used to fight it out on track with**

__

We probably should’ve just got married, it would have saved a lot of the admin when we adopted Jamie. I can’t imagine living with anyone other than Max, now - we make each other laugh every day and I know we’ve turned into a bit of an Ernie and Bert-style double act (I think we got there quite early on, actually) but I can really recommend a platonic life partner. We’ve both had flings come and go, over the years but it’s Max and the kids I want to come home to for at least another 26 years.

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**Verstappen-Russell signs to Techeetah junior programme**

__

(Techeetah-Xiaomi) 

__

Techeetah-Xiaomi are pleased to announce Jamie Verstappen-Russell has joined our junior programme, after clinching the 2055 British FE4 title in her first season in cars.

__

At just fifteen, Jamie did well to defeat a more experienced field to become the first female driver to win the championship since it switched to all-electric power in 2050. 

__

Verstappen-Russell, the younger sister of current Honda works F1 driver Abdul Verstappen-Russell and daughter of former F1 champions Max Verstappen and George Russell, had taken the step to FE4 this year after a successful karting career.

__

Quotes from team and driver follow:

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_ Techeetah-Xiaomi team principal, Antonio Felix da Costa  _

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“I’m delighted we’ve been able to sign Jamie, who’s such an impressive talent. I know that a lot of teams have been following her career and Techeetah are very keen to help her reach the peak of her talent on her way to race with us in Formula E. 

__

Jamie’s thermal management truly impressed myself and [former Techeetah Formula E driver and team owner] JEV and we were really pleased to be able to reach out to her dads before anyone else could snap her up. It’s fantastic, as ever, to see a young driver commit to Formula E as an ambition and I know it won’t be long before we see Jamie testing the Gen20 car.”

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_ Jamie Verstappen-Russell, Techeetah-Xiaomi junior driver _

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“I’m so excited to take my first steps towards a professional career in Formula E. Techeetah were a team I really looked up to, as a kid and always wanted to drive for so to know I’m on my way to that is an incredibly special moment. 

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I think people expected me to want to go to F1 but it’s always been Formula E, for me - I love tight circuits and the fierce racing, I can’t wait to have a go in the proper simulator and I’m determined to work harder than ever to make my dreams happen. I’d like to say a huge thank you to Antonio and JEV for putting their trust in me.”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? self-indulgent? i barely know them.


End file.
